Airbus wing section donated to UNH for research

Tail section will be used to support education and research at university’s Flow Physics Facility

Airbus Americas has donated the section of an A320 aircraft wing, valued at $500,000 to the University of New Hampshire.

The 20-foot-long part, known as an elevator, is designed for flight control on the aircraft’s tail will be used to support education and research in the university’s Flow Physics Facility, the largest wind tunnel of its type in the world.

At 300 feet long, the facility is the world’s largest scientific quality boundary-layer wind tunnel facility. It helps engineers and scientists better understand the dynamics of turbulent boundary layers, informing the aerodynamics of situations such as atmospheric wind over the ocean, the flow of air over a commercial airplane or of sea water over a submarine.

According to Joe Klewicki, professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Center for Fluid Physics at UNH, the wing section will initially be used for demonstration and eventually incorporated into experiments.

“For a department like ours that does not have an aeronautics component, this is a great opportunity for our students who have an interest to learn more about aircraft aerodynamics. A wing component from an actual airplane will be a very useful learning tool in both undergraduate and graduate classes.”